PS Vita review

Sony's PlayStation Vita took handheld gaming to a new level

For

Incredible gaming

Solid construction

Brilliant screen

Dual analogue sticks

Against

There's a learning curve

No internal storage

Proprietary-tastic

That browser!

Update: Rumors of the PlayStation Vita's death are now sadly coming to fruition. Sony is soon to remove PS Vita titles from their monthly lineup of freePS Plus games, while production of the PS Vita console is shutting down worldwide in 2019.

To get a console while it's still on the market, you can head to our best PS Vita deals page, or check out our list of the 8 best PS Vita games for your library. Or check out our original 2002 review below...

The PS Vita is the most powerful, dazzling and impressive handheld games console ever built.

It packs not one but two quad-core processors, a sparkling 5-inch touchscreen OLED display, dual analogue stick controls and games that go way beyond what any other portable device is currently capable of.

That includes the Nintendo 3DS, which may wield 3D optics as its trump card, but nonetheless simply cannot compete with the Vita in terms of graphical fidelity. What the PlayStation Vita offers is more akin to a home console experience on the move, and that puts it in an elite class of one.

Of course, whether or not there is a big market for such a device is an interesting question, and we're in the process of getting some early answers. A sluggish start in Japan has been followed by some less-than-stellar sales figures in the first weeks of its International launch. It doesn't come as much of a surprise.

After all, it's a luxury item launching post-Christmas into a Western world ravaged by financial floundering, and further hindered by Sony's desperate need to make money at a time when the strength of the Yen makes exported Japanese products very expensive.